A woman and her olive grove

Maybe you've noticed that I'm a little obsessed with olive trees and olive oil. This obsession started here in Istria after I tried fresh new olive oil for the first time.

I can't go back to supermarket olive oil ever again – it's just nothing like the real thing. I look forward to the olive season every November when we help our neighbours pick their olives and head to a local producer to buy a year's supply of freshly-pressed olive oil.

I've been indulging my olive oil obsession not only by using it in the kitchen but also by writing news articles about all things related to it for Olive Oil Times. Sometimes I have the chance to write about the local olive oil scene here in Istria. I'm sharing two articles here I especially enjoyed researching and writing.

One profiles a woman producer (and fellow Canadian) who tends to her olive grove of 1500 trees on her own, producing an award-winning extra virgin olive oil. Hers is an interesting story of loss and resilience. You can read it here: Oliva Lucia: A Tale of Love, Loss and Leccino in Istria

The other article is about a Croatian celebrity chef who loves using olive oil in sometimes truly surprising ways: Chef Deniz Zembo’s Olive Oil Explorations

Animal life in the village

Animals used to be a big part of life here in Istria, where farming was a way of life for a long time. During childhood visits, I loved spending time on my grandparents' farm where there were cows, chickens, and pigs. But today few people keep farm animals. A few old ladies here in the village have chickens, while one family living just outside the village has sheep, goats, a pig, and a horse.

But there are several dogs and cats. Many of our neighbours have dogs trained for truffle hunting, but unfortunately when they're not out in the forests searching for these rare (and expensive!) truffles, they're locked up because they're considered more valuable than other dogs. As for cats, they roam free and there are quite a few resident cats here in Gračišće, as well as a few strays.

Točka loves to climb the olive tree

If you follow this blog, then you know that our cat Squeaky moved with us from India. And if you follow my Instagram page (or Squeaky's Instagram page!) then you'll also know that a kitten moved into our home recently. About two months ago, a little black and white kitten showed up on the courtyard wall and has been here ever since. Needless to say, Squeaky, who famously hates all other cats, is not very happy about this new development and has tried her best to chase this unwanted intruder away. Točka (meaning 'dot' or 'spot'), however, is very persistent and not easily deterred, and has since moved in and made herself very comfortable. Space is still being negotiated with Squeaky, who vacillates between total indifference and extreme opposition to Točka. Some days I think we're making progress, only to have to witness another screaming feline stand-off.


I'm not sure where Točka came from... is she the offspring of Lola, a long-time resident stray? Or was she abandoned? Unfortunately, we've come across quite a few abandoned animals... Earlier this month, a cardboard box had been left in the loža just inside the village gateway with two eight-week-old kittens inside and their date of birth written on the box. I was surprised they were males, because it's usually the females people try to get rid of. My friend and neighbour M adopted one, introducing him to her cat Luna – who is also adjusting to the new addition to her household. As for the other kitten, it seems to have disappeared, the sorry fate of many abandoned animals.

MiMoon gets a new home but his brother disappears

In related news, just a week after the box of abandoned kittens incident, my neighbour L introduced me to a dog who suddenly turned up in the village. Another unwanted and abandoned pet? The dog quickly won L's affection: he was calm, quiet, and obedient, but had 'a certain sadness about him', L said. He had a slight limp, and spent a lot of time licking his paws. We deduced that his paws were sore because he had probably spent a long time walking. Otherwise, he looked healthy, clean and well cared for, and wore a nice collar. L took it off to see if anything was written on it – maybe a phone number... but found nothing. I suggested a trip to the vet to check for a microchip – someone had obviously taken good care of this dog and there was a good chance he may be micro-chipped.

Bongor goes home after his big adventure

I was holding my breath while the vet scanned the back of the dog's neck, and was thrilled when the scanner registered a number. He disappeared into his office to look it up and came back with a printout of the dog's details. This is how we learned that his name was Bongor, and that he was three years old. He had been microchipped only about ten days before, and his home was in Lovran on the east coast – 50 kilometres away by road! The most direct route overland covers half this distance but would involve crossing the Učka mountain and some very rugged terrain – is this how Bongor got to Gračišće? And is this why his paws were so sore? Why would he set out on such a journey so far from home? Or was he intentionally abandoned? Only Bongor knows the answers – but later that day he was on his way home with his owner and both seemed genuinely happy to be reunited. A happy end!

Christmas wheat -- and holiday greetings!

The tradition of božićna pšenica (Christmas wheat) was not one I was familiar with before moving to Croatia.

But every year around mid-December I notice these curious plants for sale in supermarkets and on display at neighbours' homes – that look to me a lot like cat nip!

I did a bit of research and found out that the wheat grains are planted on December 13th, the feast of St. Lucy. According to the tradition, if by Christmas Day the shoots of wheat have grown tall, abundant and green, then its owner will have a prosperous New Year!

Now what I'm confused about is the fact that fully grown Christmas wheat plants are for sale everywhere. Wouldn't this be cheating, if you haven't planted it yourself? Does this mean that you're guaranteed to have a fantastic New Year if you buy a fully grown plant? I would love to know.

Here's wishing all my readers Happy Holidays and a prosperous 2016! May your wheat grow tall and lush!

A visit to the olive oil mill

Following my recent post about the olive harvest, this one is about a visit to our local oil mill. After helping our neighbour pick his olives, we headed to the mill, just a few kilometres away. Ideally, olives should be pressed within 24 hours after harvest. For this reason, the oil mills often work around the clock at this time of year (and are closed for the rest of the year!). There are about 30 olive oil mills in operation across Istria.

After being weighed the olives are loaded into the press machine

When we arrived, there were no customers ahead of us – but several showed up just a few minutes after we did. First the bags of olives were stacked onto a palette and a forklift was used to move the whole lot onto a large scale. The weight came to 245 kg. This was the weight of olives that had been picked over the previous two days, but there were many other trees still waiting to be picked.

Washing in progress

Next the bags were moved into the room where the huge Italian press machine was waiting. The bags were opened one by one, and the olives emptied into the machine. There are several stages to the pressing process. The first step is to wash the olives and separate the leaves and any debris. Next, the olives move into another compartment of the machine where they’re crushed into a paste. The third stage is centrifugation where the oil is extracted from the paste. The temperature at this and all stages of the process cannot be higher than 27 degrees Celsius. Sure enough, there was a temperature gauge on the machine and it indicated 27 degrees. If the temperature climbs higher than this, then the oil would not be considered to be ‘extra virgin’. This is why extra virgin olive oil is sometimes described as ‘cold pressed’ or ‘cold extracted’.

This machine could process three different batches at the same time and had three different compartments for washing, crushing and centrifugation. This ensures that one client’s olives are not mixed with another’s, and that each client takes home his or her own oil. The cost of pressing is charged per kg. At this mill the cost was 1.5 HRK (0.20EUR / 0.21USD / 0.28CAD / 14INR) per kg.

Our neighbour wanted to be in a photo -- here he is waiting for his olives to be processed

The whole pressing process took about an hour in total. When the first drops of oil finally appeared, it had the colour of pea soup. We each took a small cup and tasted this freshly pressed olive juice. It smelled of freshly cut grass and the taste was very fruity and peppery at the same time. When we tasted it again later at home (our neighbour had given us a few litres of this precious juice in exchange for our hard work!) after it had had time to settle, it was even more delightfully fruity in taste.

Liquid gold...

From 245 kg of olives, our neighbour got 37 litres of olive oil. This should be more than enough for a family’s consumption for the whole year. The price for a litre of locally pressed olive oil starts at 80 HRK (10EUR / 11USD / 15 CAD/ 740INR) and can be twice as much for an organic variety. The stuff you get at the supermarket is of course much cheaper, often half this price, but inferior in quality and often not real extra virgin olive oil at all. 

But there’s nothing like the real stuff. I feel so lucky to live in a place where I can get pure, extra virgin olive oil produced locally and know it’s the real thing.

Olive oil season in Istria

In Istria, olive-picking season starts in October and continues until late November. This is usually the time when olives are ripe and ready to be picked. Of course some varieties ripen faster than others, so those are the ones that have to be picked first. And in the south of the peninsula, picking usually starts earlier than in central or northern Istria.

This year was a very good year for olives because of the long, hot and dry summer we had. Last year, however, was terrible because of a very wet summer, conditions that were favourable for the destructive olive fly.

Some olive growers prefer to pick their olives before they’re fully ripe, and just as their colour starts to change from green to purple, because this increases the polyphenol (a type of micronutrient and anti-oxidant) content of the oil, and preserves its nutritional properties. Others prefer to wait until their olives are completely ripe and have fully purple skins because this will result in a larger quantity of oil. It’s a matter of taste, and quality over quantity.

We have a small olive tree in our courtyard and this year it produced its first olive! Of course we are far from having enough fruit to make even a thimble of oil… But this year we had the chance to experience an olive harvest when we helped a neighbour pick his olives.

His olive grove is not far from the village, situated on the side of a hill which has been terraced so that each tree gets maximum sun exposure. His trees are less than ten years old and he keeps pruning the branches so that they grow outwards rather than upwards. As a result the trees are not very tall and it was easy to hand pick the olives.

We spread a net on the ground around the tree so that it would catch all the falling olives. The olives are plucked off the branches by hand, or by using a small hand rake. I preferred to simply pluck them by hand off the branches, working one branch at a time. Those using the rakes just let them drop on the net below, and once all the olives had been removed from the tree, they’re picked up off the net. Inevitably leaves and twigs get mixed up with the olives and these have to be separated. We were a group of six working on each tree and I was surprised at how quickly we could finish one tree. Of course some trees had more olives than others, and the fruit varied according to the variety: some were fat and juicy, while others were much smaller. I enjoyed this work better than grape picking, even though grape picking is less tedious.

In Istria, food is an important part of any activity. So once we had finished picking for the day, it was time to eat. We had an improvised picnic on the hilltop and enjoyed the last warm days of Autumn.

Olives should be pressed within 24 hours of picking so that their nutritional value is preserved as much as possible. So that evening we headed to the local oil mill… the subject of my next blog post!

Autumn colours

Long hot summer

Finally we had a thunderstorm last night. We were eagerly waiting for the rain after weeks of sweltering temperatures in the high 30s. I felt like I was back in India! Except that in India we were used to have ceiling fans to keep cool. So to cope with the heat we bought a portable pedestal fan which ran constantly day and night. We then decided it would be good to have a second fan, one for upstairs and one for downstairs, and headed back to the same shop in Pazin where we had bought the first one. But they were already sold out! So were all the other shops.

On Thursday there were hints of a storm approaching, announced by the rumbling sound of thunder coming from a distance. Again, I felt like I was back in India waiting for the first anticipated drops of the monsoon rains to arrive and bring relief from the heat. A few big drops fell, but not enough to completely soak the ground. Then a few hours later, the distinct smell of something burning was in the air. We quickly found out that there were forest fires burning nearby in Kršan and Plomin, where the lightning from the aborted storm had set trees on fire. This was devastating news because there were already fires burning in other parts of Croatia which had decimated hectares and hectares of forests and agricultural land, and just the week before there had been other fires in Istria.

From the village, the view east towards Kršan and Plomin was very hazy because of the smoke in the air and the wind even carried ashes from the fires all the way to our courtyard. By nightfall the fires were still burning in Plomin and we could see the glow of the flames on the hillside.

Then when things finally seemed to be under control, the fire in Kršan suddenly reignited and another fire was announced near Tinjan in central Istria. We heard the Canadair planes whizzing overhead on their way to drop seawater onto the flames.

Forest fires are very common during very hot and dry summers like the one we’re experiencing. And unfortunately they are not always started by natural phenomena like lightning but also purposely by arsonists.

So the thunderstorm last night and the intermittent showers we’ve been having all morning have been very welcome. The forecast for the next few days is a more comfortable 30/31 degrees and hopefully all the fires have been extinguished and the risk of fire is diminished. The fire-fighters can finally take a rest and so can our trusty fan!

Adventures of a South Indian cat in Istria

Our cat Squeaky is a minor celebrity in the village as the cat who travelled here all the way from India. Squeaky has adapted to her new home but it did take some time. A neighbour calls her Squeakić so she now has a local name.

I have this feeling I'm not in Bangalore anymore.

Back in her natural habitat, the streets of Bangalore, Squeaky was an avid hunter. She would turn her nose up at the Whiskas I would lay out for her and go outside to the terrace, climb onto the roof, and catch a squirrel instead. She would also hunt mice and rats on a daily basis. Then there were the five small rabbits she brought home (not all at the same time) – and my special birthday surprise: a bat under the bed.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much wildlife in the village. Or maybe there are enough stray cats to make sure there are no rodents around. 

So Squeaky has been relegated to chasing flies and other insects, and is very good at locating scorpion intruders in the middle of the night. 

I've also managed to find a brand of cat food she likes. But too bad there's no 'rat-flavoured' pet food. I think she'd prefer that. 

Yay! A sunny spot! Time for a nap!

In Bangalore Squeaky would spend most of the night wandering around the neighbourhood and catch up on sleep during the long, hot days. Here she is a lot less nocturnal and spends the days looking for sunny spots to doze in or observing the goings-on from the veranda. She does go off on regular explorations around the village but has been sticking close to home ever since she got into a fight with a brawny tom cat. Squeakić thinks she’s a Bengal tiger you see, and not a little street cat from New Thippasandra. I guess she thought she’d show this tom (who we’ve nicknamed ‘the thug’) who’s the boss... After watching her growl ferociously and puff up her tail for a while, the unimpressed tom pounced. She bolted across the square – but the tom easily caught up to her. The two felines somersaulted in a flurry of flying fur and hysterical shrieking before we managed to chase the thug off. Squeaky ran inside to lick her wounds, and has been keeping a low profile ever since.

There's so much to explore...

Since the renovation work on the ground floor is not complete, we’ve made a cat ladder for kitty so she can descend into the courtyard. However, the curious village strays have also discovered the ladder leading to our window on the upper floor. One night we woke to a commotion coming from the hallway. I was horrified to see a cat stuck in the window and desperately trying to free itself. (Our windows tilt inwards vertically, leaving a gap at the top so that we can let in air without having the window wide open.) It was the thug! That brawny tom cat (who clearly is not so brainy) thought he’d try to jump through the gap but got his head lodged between the window and the frame. With some difficulty, he was freed and survived the ordeal. The (badly scratched up) window now stays firmly closed at night and when we're not home!

Check out my cat ladder!

Squeaky the South Indian cat has also had to adapt to a different climate. She spent the winter curled up next to the radiator, but she’s been enjoying the hot summer days which remind her of her native Bangalore. 

I miss those fat rats -- but not the firecrackers during Diwali!

No rats, but good food, a cat ladder, peace and quiet. Life is good for the South Indian cat!

1st day of Summer

Welcome Summer!

Today is the longest day of the year. The sun came up this morning at 5:14 and will go down at 20:54.

This is what summer looks like…

Recipe for elderflower syrup

It’s that time of the year when the sweet smell of elderflowers is in the air as the elder trees bloom. Called bazga in Croatian, this tree is more like a large, tall bush, and the flowers appear in large clusters of delicate white flowers.

The flowers are used to make a syrup, and so are the small dark berries which appear at the end of summer. But I prefer making it with the flowers – diluted with water this is one of my favourite drinks. The delicate and subtle smell and taste of the elderflower is hard to describe, but there’s nothing else like it.

So this week I made 9 litres of elderflower syrup, hoping this will be enough to last for the months to come. It’s especially refreshing mixed with fizzy water. Sometimes if I feel like I’m coming down with a cold, I like to pour the syrup in a cup of hot water and drink it hot!

The syrup is super easy to make! I used the recipe my grandmother had given me and I had saved in a notebook. Here it is:

Ingredients:

30 heads of elderflower

3 kg of sugar

3 litres of water

50 g of citric acid

Method:

Pick large heads of elderflower where all the buds have opened. Some can be infested with small insects so avoid those. Shake off any flies or insects and place the flowers in a large bowl or pot. Pour in 3 litres of water, cover and let stand for 24 hours.

The next day, remove the flowers and strain the liquid into a large pot with a five-litre capacity. Use a fine sieve to filter the water, or a dishcloth.

Heat the liquid until it is hot but not boiling. Add the sugar and citric acid and stir until these completely dissolve.

Pour the liquid into glass bottles and seal.

Yields about 4.5 litres.

It’s asparagus season!

You know it’s really spring in Istria when the wild asparagus appears.

One month ago a neighbour told me he was going to pick asparagus. “Is it already asparagus season?” I asked, surprised, since the weather was still cool and not very spring-like. He replied that he had already found a few spears of wild asparagus in the woods.

Wild asparagus is a delicacy here. The stalks are much thinner than the kind you find in supermarkets, and the taste is a lot sharper. They’re delicious – and full of vitamins and antioxidants, like all plant foods.

A few days later, I saw bunches of wild asparagus for sale at the Pazin market and couldn’t resist buying some. I asked the woman selling them where she had picked them, since they were still hard to find in this area. They came from the Istrian coast.

As soon as I got home I chopped them up and cooked them for lunch but I was a little disappointed. Some parts were too hard and fibrous, and they didn’t seem to have as strong a taste as the wild asparagus I had eaten before.

“They probably have too much water because of all the rain,” my aunt speculated – hence the less-pronounced flavour. And the hard parts? I was doing it all wrong. She told me how to prepare wild asparagus: “You don’t cut asparagus – you have to snap the heads off and then keep snapping off small pieces until they don’t ‘snap’ anymore. Then keep the hard, rubbery pieces to make soup.” She also told me not to cook them for too long – to preserve as much flavour and vitamins as possible. Also, it’s best to cook them as soon as possible by blanching them in boiling water for 2-3 minutes. They can then be frozen.

Now that the weather has finally warmed up and the days are sunny, wild asparagus is much easier to find. My father showed me what the plant looks like and I was thrilled to spot my first asparagus spears poking out of the ground. Wearing gloves is a good idea because the asparagus plant is prickly. The dark purple or deep green asparagus spears grow underneath or near the long prickly branches of the plant, and sometimes right next to it. Another variety of wild asparagus called bljušt (didn’t find the English name) is also abundant at this time of year. Very similar to asparagus, the tops are usually bent and the stalks a dark purple colour.

The forest where I found my asparagus

The next time I cooked asparagus I got it right, and I prepared the asparagus I had picked myself. This time I was not disappointed: they had that distinctive strong flavour – and there were no rubbery bits! Popular ways to eat wild asparagus and bljušt are scrambled with eggs, in risotto or with pasta. Then of course the rubbery bits are used to make a delicious soup. Wild asparagus is also delicious with a little bit of Istrian olive oil. I also love eating the thin young shoots raw, immediately after picking them!

How do you like to eat asparagus? Do you have a favourite recipe? If so, please share it here!

1st day of Spring

Just when the rainy winter days seemed like they would never end, Spring is finally here. After a damp – but relatively mild – winter, the Bura finally arrived and blew away the rain clouds, bringing clear skies and sunny weather.

There’s nothing like those first heady days of Spring and the invigorating feeling of the sun’s warmth. All of a sudden the first flowers started pushing through the earth and new buds appeared on the trees. The sunny weather has brought everyone out to their fields where they’re busy tilling the earth and preparing it for planting. The days grow longer with each day and we finally have over 12 hours of sunshine each day and no longer wake up in the dark.

Welcome Spring!

Buds of the Chestnut tree

Flowers of the Rosemary bush

Daffodils - the first flowers of Spring

Istrian olive oil – heaven in a bottle

One of the things I like about living in Istria is the quality of life. ‘Quality of life’ can mean many different things but what I mean here is basic things like the quality of the air, water and food. I guess after living many years in India, I’ve learned to appreciate these simple but essential things. Living in a rural environment, there is no air pollution here, the tap water does not have to be purified to be drunk (and it doesn’t have a bad taste!), and it’s easy to get good, natural produce.

Local people do not like to buy store-bought vegetables and try to grow as much of their own food as possible. Nor do they spray their produce with any type of pesticide but try to grow it chemical-free. They don’t even use the word ‘organic’ or ‘bio’ because they grow their food the same way they’ve been growing it for decades before those ‘modern’ words existed. Locals simply say “I don’t spray”, to mean that they don’t use chemical pesticides.

Many people here have olive groves and cultivate olives for their own olive oil production. Istrian olive oil is an absolute delight – pure heaven in a bottle! There are many different varieties of olives grown here, each of which produces an oil with its own subtle flavours. So far I’ve had the opportunity to taste the Leccino, Črnica and Bjelica varieties. Though I can distinguish the slight differences between them, I have a very hard time deciding which one is the best! What’s particular about Istrian olive oil is that it has a pleasant, slightly fruity taste. I don’t think I can ever have store-bought olive oil ever again!

Our 15 litres of Leccino

This winter we bought 15 litres of Leccino from a family who produces their own oil while my father bought 15 litres of Črnica (which has a ‘stronger’ taste than Leccino). We fill a bottle of each at a time so that we always have two varieties on hand. 

Then my uncle in Izola, in the Slovenian part of Istria, also gave us a few litres of his own olive oil, which is just as heavenly (but I don’t know what variety it is!). So we have three different types of pure Istrian extra virgin olive oil in our kitchen and alternate between them, depending on which taste we feel like having!

The olive harvest in Istria happens usually in October or November, depending on weather conditions. Like grape harvesting, olive picking is usually a big family affair, where friends join in too, since the olives are picked by hand. Once they’re picked they must be taken to the local oil mill within 24 hours. Freshly pressed olive oil has a beautiful greenish colour and not the golden yellow colour that store-bought olive oil has. The taste is divine.

For a charming description of an olive harvest by an Istrian family, read 'The olive harvest season in Istria has begun' on a gourmet food blog called 'Manjada'.

A small olive grove near Gračišće (seen on the hilltop)

Istrian olive oil is unique for many reasons:

• It’s produced by small family producers who make olive oil for their own consumption and then sell any excess oil to their friends and neighbours.
• It’s extracted by mechanical and not chemical means.
• It is not refined or industrially treated and is unadulterated, i.e. not mixed with other different types of lower grade oils (which is the case of store-bought oils).
• Since it’s cold-pressed only once, it has a high concentration of polyphenols, which are considered to be antioxidants and beneficial for health and longevity.
• It’s expensive! The olive oil you can buy from family producers costs two times more than store-bought extra virgin olive oil – but it is worth every single kuna because of all the above reasons.

Have you tried Istrian olive oil? Which variety is your favourite?

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1st day of winter

Today’s the first day of winter. Though I wasn’t looking forward to winter, the fact that today’s the 21st of December is a bit of a relief because it means that from today the days will get longer. This morning the sun came up at 7:39 and will be setting at 16:22. Before I know it, the day’s over! So I’m glad that from tomorrow onwards, we’ll get a few seconds and then minutes more of daylight each day. 

This will be my first winter in seven years so that’s why I’m not looking forward to it. Yes, I’ve lived most of my life in Canada so I know all about winter and snow, ice, hats, coats, scarves, gloves and boots. But I was thoroughly spoiled during the seven years I spent in South India. I wore sandals year round, rarely wore socks and never had to think about heating. Though I’m not really a ‘summer person’ – my favourite seasons are Autumn and Spring – I loved living in a tropical climate where it was summer every day and very quickly got used to it. 

So now that I’m back in more Northerly climes, keeping warm has become a high priority. The sandals have been stored away, I now have an impressive collection of thermal socks, and I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about heating… 

In Canada our heating ran on electricity (which is cheap over there) and in Belgium we used natural gas to run our central heating system. Here in Istria, piped gas is not available (except in a few cities), so we use a gas cylinder for cooking (like we did in India). However, very few people use gas for heating because it’s expensive and most use wood as it’s the cheapest and most readily available energy source. 

So when considering what kind of heating system we’re going to use in our little house, we’ve had to carefully weigh all the options. Gas is out because it’s too expensive and inconvenient: we’d need to order a new cylinder at least every other week, probably more. Wood is the cheapest option but there are other considerations. It is not very convenient either because it has to be cut, stored in a dry place, carried inside, and put into the stove. Also, there’s no waking up in a warm house because it’s not possible to maintain a fire overnight and it takes some time to light and get a fire running. 

One day at the Pazin market we saw a demonstration for some fancy Italian stoves which used pellets – a type of processed wood. Pellets seem to be more energy efficient than wooden logs and these sophisticated stoves have a built-in control panel and even a timer – which means you could wake up to a warm house. But of course these clever stoves come with a hefty price tag. 

When I ask family members for advice, I always get the same answer: wood is the way to go because it’s the cheapest option. But what about other considerations? No one here seems to think about the environmental impacts of burning wood. When I ask people where they get their wood, many tell me they have some forestland where they chop down a few trees every winter to use for firewood. There is a lot of forest in Istria and if there is an environmental impact, it’s not noticeable. My father told me that when he was young, most of the land in Istria was cultivated – today it’s covered with forestland. So the forest does seem to be able to regenerate itself despite the fact that so many people are cutting down trees. I wonder if this is because supply still outweighs demand, and whether this can continue and the forest will always be able to regenerate itself. 

Then there’s the question of air quality. Walking through the towns and villages here, the smell of burning wood in the air is a novelty for me and not unpleasant. But when we drive down into Pazin, we can see the layer of smoke hovering over the town. There’s no doubt that this must affect air quality. 

So the heating debate continues…it’s a question of cost over convenience and consideration for our environment. 

Welcome, 1st day of winter! May the days get longer and take us quickly into Spring!